6 ms·

I really like Netflix originals (the ones I've watched), but it also makes me fear for the future of consolidated streaming. I want to be able to keep up with,

• kartD 10y ago
  What about a Spotify equivalent with everything, but you can only stream x amount of hours/shows/episodes per year? I agree the market is too fractured and everyone subscribes for just a few shows on each service
  • fitchjo 10y ago
    What is the equivalent for TV content producers that concerts are for musicians? Seems to me there can be some advantage to having your music available for streaming as you provide significantly more access to your music, which you can then monetize through concerts/apparel, but would think those producing the in-demand content would not want someone else to be able to capitalize on that.
• gdulli 10y ago
  It feels like this is a path they foresaw long ago and therefore worked out the cable TV infrastructure. Which may have flaws and got bloated but also has a lot of benefits compared to streaming.
• rweichler 10y ago
  It is pretty easy to circumvent censorship these days, thanks to BitTorrent.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • loco5niner 10y ago
    Censorship is the wrong term here. Plus, I want to pay for what I use. I just want the process to be somewhat simplified.
• TylerE 10y ago
  For like $2 extra a month you can get all the HBO stuff throguh Amazon Prime.
  • dawnerd 10y ago
    Where do you get 2 dollars? From prime: $14.99/month after trial https://www.amazon.com/gp/channels/offers/signup/ref=atv_channels?ie=UTF8&benefitID=hbo https://www.amazon.com/gp/channels/offers/signup/ref=atv_cha...
    • baddox 10y ago
      Indeed. It's exactly the same price you pay going directly through HBO NOW. I don't quite see the point, although I will confess to using it to get an extra free trial month.
  • overcast 10y ago
    It's definitely $15 a month, not $2. I just signed up for it.
  • manmal 10y ago
    If you mean HBO go, it's $14,99 per month through Prime.
• ascagnel_ 10y ago
  The way I see it, you have three choices: - true a la carte; pay for exactly what you want (on disc or through some provider's store like iTunes, Amazon Video, Xbox Video, etc) - subscribe to a bunch of different services (the situation we're in now) - bundle them up A la carte pricing will be more expensive than anything else, but you get some greater flexibility over the stuff you own. The situation we have now is annoying, but at least you can turn them on and off as needed (so you can pay for HBO only when Game of Thrones is airing). When you bundle them up, it's only a matter of time until you end up with the traditional cable bundle and all the customer abuses and fleecing that it entails.
  • endymi0n 10y ago
    At JustWatch, we've started aggregating the streaming market, and at the beginning the market looked like a lot of consolidation (harmonized prices for rent/buy offers, Netflix/Amazon Prime going for global deals...) - but by now, it looks nothing like we'll be out of business anytime soon. Movie rights and distribution are still very strategically fragmented into various differently sized individual deals and packages - and none of the established movie studios and new digital players particularly like each other. All of it creates a situation that makes a universal legal streaming service with a broad offering and flatrate pricing (like Spotify) highly unlikely. Bad for the user, good for us.
    • chiph 10y ago
      If for some reason this doesn't work out, look at doing the same thing for publications. It'd be nice to have one place to pay (and manage subscriptions for) the WSJ and other paywalled sites.
• grillvogel 10y ago
  if only there was a service that "bundled" all the "channels" you like into some sort of "package" and provided a unified interface to stream them all into your TV through a "cable" like device
  • TheRealPomax 10y ago
    That'd be pretty amazing. I hope when someone does make that service, they don't then "inject ads every five minutes" like youtube does, don't turn streaming into "only at prespecified times" like those "theaters" and "cinemas" we hear about in history class, and don't start exploiting the fact that there is no real competition by doing things like charging for "bundled content" that you never opted in for while also not being able to opt out of.
    • emodendroket 10y ago
      > don't start exploiting the fact that there is no real competition by doing things like charging for "bundled content" that you never opted in for while also not being able to opt out of. I mean this is basically what the OP is asking for
  • fullshark 10y ago
    It is amusing that people have been complaining about not having a la carte cable for years, and suddenly the opposite complaint is surfacing about these streaming services.
    • 67726e 10y ago
      I wouldn't mind having a cable package again if it weren't for all the ads. I'm simply not going to pay for a service for it to inject ads into my experience, and that includes cable television.
    • croon 10y ago
      I'm not sure it's comparable. I wouldn't say TiVo was as convenient as streaming, the shows were at predefined times on different channels, it was harder for providers to track what shows got views from which customers, which I believe is why streaming services has been able to produce such high quality shows. They both have the benefit of not being reliant on advertisers, as well as tracking exactly what their paying customers mostly focus on and put money there. Spotify pays whatever artists I listen to. If I buy a cable package I pay for a bunch of reality TV I have never watched.
• stcredzero 10y ago
  If I want to watch shows like The Man in the High Castle (Amazon), Game of Thrones (HBO, duh), Difficult People (Hulu), HarmonQuest (Seeso), etc. Is it reasonable to have to subscribe to 5 different streaming services? Yes, if everyone is charging a fair amount. Add YouTube Red. 6 x $10 = $60/month. That strikes me as a better bargain than most cable packages.
  • mark_l_watson 10y ago
    I agree. Once I can get Turner Classic Movies legally on the web, then no more cable. For myself, Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube Red are all I need. As to the main topic, the original content is great, but then so is having a large number of tv shows and movies.
    • intopieces 10y ago
      For TCM like content, try FilmStruck
      • mark_l_watson 10y ago
        Thanks for this, checking it out.
• tornadoboy55 10y ago
  Almost everyone I know pays for Netflix and just torrents the rest. And it will stay that way as long as the market stays fractured. Spotify succeeded in dropping music piracy by ~80% because they have almost everything. Remember when Kanye said his album would only be on Tidal? Or Taylor Swift her new album only on Apple music (I know I know, shitty artists).. people didn't subscribe to those services just for that album, they just torrented it. TV production is more expensive than music production, so a $20-30 would be a more reasonable pricepoint, but anything above that, and again: people will just pirate.
  • amorphid 10y ago
    One thing Netflix does right is being everywhere. Most any device that has streaming has Netflix. The availability of Amazon Instant Video sucks. It's not available on a Chromecast. It's not on Apple TV. It's not on a lot of devices that I wanted to buy. I don't want to be forced into buying a crappier device just so I can stream Amazon programming. They went a step further, and stopped selling the Chromecast on Amazon.com. I want a Chromecast. I don't want your stupid Fire TV Stick. If you have to maintain a list of devices compatible with your service like this one... https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/devices https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/devices ...I don't want to use your streaming video service.
    • makecheck 10y ago
      For what it's worth, an NVIDIA Shield can do Amazon video, and it is also a Google Cast device.
• freddyc 10y ago
  We pay for Netflix and have access to all of the Amazon content via our Prime subscription and then we just use Exodus on Kodi for everything else. I'd love to see a legal Exodus emerge one day but I think it's unlikely in the foreseeable future.
• stone-monkey 10y ago
  It's hard to imagine consolidation in a winner take all market like we currently have. If content producers license their shows to Netflix, they're only going to get a fraction of that 9.99 a month subscription fee, with Netflix itself getting the lion's share of the money. They also become more beholden to Netflix' demands if they're the only major player in the video streaming market. Also, with Netflix now producing content, they're helping to prop up their competitor if they hand over their content libraries. This is pretty similar to how mind geek killed the porn production market, except instead of outright pirating content, Netflix gives producers a fraction of what they're previously making through TV. Basically, consolidation will only happen if Netflix can kill and absorb traditional TV media.
• Kaizyn 10y ago
  Even if your 5 on-demand subscriptions come in cheaper than basic cable would cost, you would not be willing to accept that?
• osmala 10y ago
  I would say that the issue is more like you like certain kinds of content and streaming services are not split among content types but among who makes the shows. And that you want to watch all the exclusive top shows that are made for dragging people to their streaming platform. I'm in Finland and I would be happy if could select 2-3 streaming services from American selection. But only real options HBO and Netflix with 38% of what they show in USA and a third option which was so terrible for me that I wouldn't even consider it.